WITH SITES SET ON SECOND NHRA TITLE, J.R. TODD EAGER TO START NEW SEASON

A new season in any sport brings widespread optimism – everyone is equal with the same opportunity ahead: earn more points than any other team, and when the 21-race season ends in November, stand atop the rest as the champion. The 2023 Camping World Drag Racing season begins at the Amalie Oil Gatornationals set for March 10-12, 2023 at historic Gainesville Raceway in Florida.

J.R. Todd wasn’t a huge 2022 fan after recording one runner up, four semifinal appearances and an eighth-place points finish for the DHL Funny Car team’s efforts. Driver and team enter the new season eager to return the DHL Toyota Supra to the winner’s circle.

“With the way our season went last year, the start of a new season definitely gets you fired up and ready to go,” Todd said. “The offseason always seems like it drags on forever. November wasn’t that long ago, but I’m just anxious to get going. We have new helmets from the painter and a new fire suit; things like that just increase the excitement level for me. And then once you get to test and kind of knock that rust off, that just makes it even more exciting and gets you more ready to go.”

Todd’s last win came at the 2021 Gatornationals. Good experience and meaningful memories from that win add to the overall excitement of starting the season with one of the season’s biggest races.

“The Gaters is kinda like one of the majors for us in golf terms,” the 19-time race winner said. “It’s a big one; the Gatornationals is always kinda like the East Coast version of the Winternationals because it draws a lot of people from the Northeast and the Midwest, and it’s always a big crowd. We were lucky enough to win it a couple years ago - anytime you can win a race like that and put your name next to the guys like Big Daddy, Snake and all those greats that won that race in the past, it’s pretty special.”

Also special is winning a season championship which Todd did in 2018 when the DHL Toyota Supra team was best in class reaching the summit of the sport. Once a team tastes a championship, anything less doesn’t quite cut it.

“After winning a championship, winning another is always the goal going into the season,” Todd added. “Anything short of a championship means you just didn’t meet your goals or exceed your expectations. To get back there, the first step is winning a race; that’s something we didn't do last year, and it stings when you go a full calendar year without winning so first you gotta be able to win races to be in form, that’s the first step.

“I’m always striving to make myself better. Drivers pride themselves on reaction time, and that’s always at the top of my list, just trying to find ways to be better on the starting line and always be at the top of the chart when it comes to driver’s reaction. So much of it is mental, but you know, you're always looking for different things inside and outside the car, whether it's the way you sit, the way you hit the throttle - anything to find few thousandths of a second that that can help you get off the starting line ahead of your competitors. That’s my goal, but the ultimate angle is always to win races and another title.”